Friday, February 12, 2016

Find Somewhere to Live with Google Maps

When you're looking for somewhere new to live you don't just want the perfect property you also want it in the perfect area. What makes a perfect neighborhood will be different for different people. In deciding the perfect neighborhood, however, you might consider a number of criteria, such as the crime rate, the commuting time to work, good local schools, public transit links and the 'charm' of the area.

Walk Score has been rating neighborhoods by how pedestrian friendly they are for a number of years. However Walk Score provides heat-maps not just for Walk Score ratings but also for public transit links and how cycle friendly areas are.

If you enter an address into Walk Score you can view a Google Map of the neighborhood with its Walk Score, Transit Score and Bike Score ratings. The ratings for each are based on a number of criteria, for example the Walk Score analyzes the walking routes to lots of different nearby amenities, rating routes based on their distance and pedestrian friendliness.

RentLingo can give you a 'charm' rating for potential neighborhoods. RentLingo rates areas based on its Charm Index. In deciding an area's Charm Index score RentLingo looks at lots of different neighborhood factors, such as the number of local stores, available amenities, the crime rate and how environmentally friendly it is.

When you use the Rent Lingo Google Map you can view an overall heat-map of a city's Charm Index. You can also select to view heat-maps for other factors, such as local Store Prices, Store Ratings, Store Owners and Lifestyle.

Trulia Local also allows you to find great neighborhoods to live based on a number of factors. Their Google Maps based interface allows you to view heat-maps of local crime rates, affordability of property and local demographics.

One of the most useful features on Trulia Local is their commute times option, Using this feature you can find out how long it takes to
commute to or from any location by public transit or by car. For example
you can center the map on your place of work and find out all the potential areas to live within your choice of commute time.